ANNECY SPECIAL CRYSTAL AWARD FOR JERZY KUCIA

Professor Jerzy Kucia – internationally acclaimed author of animated films, the laureate of the Dragon of Dragons Award (2009) and the member of Krakow Film Foundation Board is to be awarded with Special Crystal Award of Annecy in recognition of his lifetime achievement.

The organizers emphasize the contribution of Jerzy Kucia in the development of the art of animation, and his personal involvement in the activities of the International Animated Film Association (ASIFA), of which he was Vice-President (1994-1997).

International Animated Film Festival in Annecy will take place on 10th - 15th June 2013. Poland will be a special guest of this edition.

Jerzy Kucia (b. 1942) is an animated film script writer and director, producer, university teacher, graphic artist as well as a painter. He studied painting, graphic arts and animation at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow and since 1981 he has been heading the Academy’s Animated Film Studio. For a few years now, he has been running the International Animated Film Workshops in Krakow for young artists and students from Poland and abroad organized in Krakow on his initiative.

Jerzy Kucia made his debut in 1972 with a film entitled “Powrót”. He has completed several animations since then, all of which were presented at competitions of major international festivals on numerous occasions and received important awards. Such pictures as Krąg (1978), Refleksy (1979), Odpryski (1984), Parada (1986), Across the Field (1992) or Tuning the Instruments (2000) have won wide acclaim of critics and festival jury members.

Professor Kucia is one of the most recognized Polish animation authours in the world and the retrospectives of his work have been presented at museums, art centres and such prestigious festivals as Clermont-Ferrand, London, Cannes, Zagreb, Utrecht, Mumbai, Edinburgh, Taipei and elsewhere as well as at such major art institutions as New York’s Museum of Modern Art, London’s Tate Modern and aired by the BBC. In 1981 the Media Library in Quebec and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts invited Jerzy Kucia as the only representative of the Polish cinematography to participate in an international exhibition entitled ‘The Art of Animated Film’.

In 2009 prof. Jerzy Kucia was awarded the Dragon of Dragons Award at the Krakow Film Festival in recognition of his lifetime achievement.